


ashes to ashes (make for fertile soil)

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark!Aziraphale, M/M, Spanish Inquisition, a bit - Freeform, and more angelic in the scary biblical sense of the word, at least more ruthless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6894244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, Crowley, don't feel guilty," he said. Crowley realized with a start that he was reassuring him and had to bite back a hysterical laugh.</p><p> "Only, you were ever so miserable torturing people, and really, it does no one no good to have an institution of the Father using hellish means. There have to be boundaries drawn somewhere."</p>
            </blockquote>





	ashes to ashes (make for fertile soil)

 

Toledo was on fire.

The air vibrated with the ringing of bells, molecules swelling and cracking in the heat.The whole of the city's clergy swarmed around the origin of the fire. They looked like a community of black ants heedless now that their nest was going up in flames.

Crowley flickered his tongue. It might have been forked and black . It was gone too soon to tell. He pulled a face. The air smelled of burning wood and scorched flesh, melting mortar and dripping metal. Fire, of course, but not the kindled fire peasants used to warm their cramped cottages, nor the expensive wax plumes only bishops and princes had access to. This was holy fire. It smelled like divine wrath and righteousness, with a hint of cinnamon.

One building watched this all from the heights, and a being watched from the top of the building. It was a Castle, named after San Servando. The being had many names. None fit quite right in that moment, or maybe they all did.

Barely squashed between crenellations, they observed, head tilted back. In a soft hand they held a bottle of wine, from which they sipped time to time. It was Galician wine, twenty six years old, an offer from an abassy that would not miss it.

For once their wings were out. Crowley saw them long before he landed. That was when he knew.

"You set the fire." Crowley said. He repeated himself for good measure. If he did that then it would have more opportunities to flush, offended at the very thought, scoff and wave it away. He did it even though he knew it would not happen. Crowley was nothing if not an optimist.

The angel tittered. One hand pressed to a flushed cheek, he seemed bashful, cherubic. His half liked gaze didn't move from the burning headquarters of the Inquisition.

"Don't me so dramatic, dear. The kindling was all there. I only gave it the spark it needed."

"A spark?" Crowley demanded. He felt like he should be screaming, wailing. Hundreds of people were dead, dying in agony and despair. He knew that if he were a human he would be retching. He might be a demon, but this was a whole different level of destruction. It reminded him unpleasant,y of Gomorrah and Sedome.

He didn't scream. Snakes knew when not to upset predators bigger and meaner than them.

"It was an accident. A young monk on his first torture session, jittery with doubt. Certainly you have met the type. A young woman was being accused of witchcraft. She had his mother's name. By the time the other priests were done with her she could not recognize it as her own."

"The monk killed the priests. The girl- she wasn't a witch at all, her only fault was having a Jewish grandfather- she killed him too. Smart one that she was, she took his keys. Freed four other prisoners before the guards came. They hid in a storage room, by the gunpowder kegs. In the confusion it was ever so easy for her to let go of one measly candle."

"But it wasn't human fire in that candle, was it?" Crowley asked quietly.

Maybe they smelt the animal fear in him. Maybe they got tired of speaking to thin air. They turned around. Crowley took a step back. The eyes of the being that had been and was and would always be Aziraphale shone, a ruthless lightening-struck blue.

But those were Aziraphale's eyebrows frowning, Aziraphale's hands mindlessly patting away the embers in Crowley's dark robes. Even, blessedly, damnably, Aziraphale's eyes, yes, holy and terrible and Aziraphale's.

  
"Oh, Crowley, don't feel guilty," he said. Crowley realized with a start that he was reassuring him and had to bite back a hysterical laugh. "Only, you were ever so miserable torturing people, and really, it does no one no good to have an institution of the Father using hellish means. There have to be boundaries drawn _somewhere_."

'And you daw yours where, exactly?' Crowley thought but didn't ask. He didn't need to. The last time they had met, for tapas and viño, Crowley had been unquestionably pained. His work was chipping away parts of him, the ones that had made him question and tempt Eve in the first place.

Aziraphale's had listened to what few grievances he had confessed between brittle smiles and bitter sibilations. He had frowned much like he did now, and at the end of the night, sky pinking over them, he had lain a hand in his back, encouraged him to trust in ineffable Justice. Crowley had cursed him for a fool and shrugged him off.

Aziraphale does not shrug him off. He was trembling. So was Crowley, but when he placed a hand in his shoulder, it stilled. It became hard to swallow over that trust, the weight of him leaning on him, so he didn't.

"It reminds me of Rome." He says instead, wistfully, after a time. The fire was now closing to the residential areas, the crashes of foundations giving in resounding down the riverside. If he noticed it, Aziraphale would probably stop it before it hurt too many civilians.

"Not the end of an Empire." The angel corrects.

"No." Crowley agrees. He squeezed his shoulder. It went against all the Laws in Heaven and Hell, it was dangerous with so much Energy around him, it was a vulnerability no predator would give. It did not stop him.

"It is a beginning, though."

Crowley was nothing if not an optimist. Aziraphale, it seemed, was more of a realist, or an eneffabilitist. Between the two of them, they evened things out.

They stayed there, guardian demon and avenging angel, until the Inquisition and all of its chains and servants and preys were ash in the Spanish wind.

It took a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://searchingforserendipity25.tumblr.com).


End file.
